I love that small moment in time when your bills show up as being paid, but the money hasn't left your bank account yet. Fabulous :)

Sour Charity

So last night Nate, myself and the group of regulars set off for our last musical from our season tickets that we got this year. The musical was Sweet Charity starring none other than Paige Davis from Trading Spaces fame. I was pretty excited.... I have a lot of friends that are big fans of the movie and I knew it had a lot of good dancing in it. Well, it became clear pretty quickly that the musical was on the, well, adult side of things. We're not talking Cabaret bad, but definitely more than most musicals that I have seen.

As the first act was drawing to a close I was really wanting to leave as my desire to get some decent sleep far outweighed my desire to find out what happened to Charity. There was a scene where she is locked in a closet that was fairly amusing, but still. As intermission was looming closer, Charity gets into a situation where she is stuck in an elevator with a claustrophobic man. It was HILARIOUS! The first act ended with that scene and all of us agreed that it totally redeemed the first act for us.

So I was fairly optimistic for the second act. It turned out to be ok, nothing too special, but I wasn't going to be sorry I stayed. And then the very last scene came... and I was sorry I stuck around. I have NEVER seen such a depressing ending to such an upbeat musical. Anyhoo, I do not recommend going to see it unless you don't need the sleep, have extra money lying around, and aren't particular about how entertaining a show has to be :P

But that is over and done with and guess what? IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!

Burned

Nate and I signed up a couple of months ago to go on a mission trip to New York with HFBC in September of this year. Every month the team gets together and talks about the trip and what we'll be doing, what to expect, etc. Well, the first meeting we went to we got an email about and it said that light snacks would be provided. We didn't know what constituted "light snacks" so we ate dinner anyway. We showed up and they were serving New York style pizza. Oh well. The next time it said "light snacks" again. Well, we weren't sure what that would mean this time so we ate again before hand and they had large soft pretzels with all the trimmings. This cycle continued about two more months before we were sure they would provide something suitable for dinner each time.

So yesterday I didn't make anything to eat and Nate and I headed over to the church at 6 pm with our tummies rumbling. We entered the Connection Center and I turned excitedly to see what I'd be eating and...... wait, is that pizza? I can't tell because of how many olives there are on it. Ummm, yeah definitely pizza. Two different ones with different toppings but the gist of it was that they both had a copious amount of olives burrowed under the cheese that you would have to pick at for half an hour to remove. Hmmm, I don't like olives... this puts me in a pickle. I ended up having to wait until I got home to eat... it wasn't too bad, but it figures that the week I finally let go of making dinner myself would be Olive Week. Anyhoo, Nate and I decided afterwards that when you are ordering for 15 different people, there should be at least one pizza that only has meat or only has cheese.... I don't want to know how many olives had to die for our pizza last night :P

Team Building

I can't remember whether I have talked about this before, so I apologize if this is a repeat. Our office leader is forcing the whole office to read a book called "Exceeding Customer Expectations". Every month at our office lunch, people are selected to give presentations on one of the chapters. Guess who has to do it this month :P My enthusiasm level for this task is at about negative 2..... thousand percent. Nate and I have been praying for a positive attitude about it and that everything I do at work, including pointless presentations, is done in a way that reflects Christ. Well, if you think about it on Friday then you can be praying the same thing as I don't quite feel the warm fuzzies about the assignment yet. Anyways, I didn't have much this morning.. sorry it wasn't more fun/interesting/entertaining :P

Chigger Happy

That's right folks, the bug bites are, drum roll please..... Chiggers! Oh Joy, oh rapture. They have somehow managed to all get bigger over the last couple of days and I don't see an end in sight. I counted my right leg bites and they come in at an official 15. 15 annoying, itchy, achy, waking me up in the middle of the night bug bites. See, this is another reason why I live in the city. On the bright side, if you look at the bites from the correct angle, they somewhat resemble the Big Dipper :P

Family.... it itches

This weekend, Nate and I went to Lake Texoma for a reunion of his dad's whole side of the family. We're talking all of his aunts, uncles, cousins and his cousin's kids... the whole enchilada. It was a lot of fun! I enjoy spending time with Nate's immediate family and I also really have a good time in particular with his uncle Don's family and his uncle James' family. We ate ALOT, hung out, played games, ate again.. you know how it is. I did bring an unfortunate souvenir back with me.... bug bites. I figure that something must have been in my bed because I got home yesterday and went to change clothes and discovered no less than 15 dime sized, bright red bug bites on my right leg. My left isn't as bad... the number is closer to 10. Anyways, I'm just sitting here today willing myself not to touch them in the hopes that they will go away more quickly. I don't know what I ever did to that bug, but if he'd just told me then I think we could have worked something out that wouldn't involve quite so much itching :P

Happy thoughts

Jen came over last night :)

I get to leave work at ten today :)

I have three boxes of Tangy Twister Mike and Ike's to get me through the drive :)

I get to hang out with Nate's family this weekend :)

My parents are the coolest and having them nearby rocks :)

This week is almost over so that means my persistent headache should be almost over :)

I made kabobs last night for the first time and they were fantastic :)

The Far Side is fantastic :)

Barnes and Noble is like a grown-up playground :)

I'm getting off track :)

Bad Choices?

I got to work today and stood waiting for an elevator after the guy who walked in in front of me shut the door to the last one before I could make it in... sweet guy. Anyways, it takes awhile but finally they draw straws and the losing lift comes down to get me (as to why 2 elevators are ALWAYS on the top floor, I have no idea). I look around and see which one has come for me and... oh crud.

For the past week and a half, one of the elevators has been stuck on my floor about 6 inches above level with the doors open and the lights off. We're talking a solid 10 days of being broken. Well, apparently it's working now and Tada!! I get to take it. I said a little prayer and hopped in, hoping for the best. Obviously I made it.... slowly, but none-the-less I'm here. I would have gotten another elevator, but I have had bad experiences in almost all of them now including one that dropped an entire floor free fall style and then got stuck forcing me to use the emergency phone. Anyhoo, maybe I'll start taking the stairs, you know... for my health, and safety :P

Rain, Rain... GO AWAY!!

Seriously, I'm beginning to feel a tad bit like a drowned rat with the amount of precipitation that has come from the sky over the past couple of weeks. I know I should take the mom approach and be grateful since there are children starving (or in drought, I suppose) in Africa or wherever, but last night the storms crossed the line in my opinion. "What did they do?" you ask, weeeeellllll, let me tell you. They came rolling in at 4 am like they owned the place and proceeded to wake me up. I don't always wake up for storms, but they knew that and took a different approach. What woke me up was when a particularly close and intense roll of thunder set off a car alarm outside our window. I'm pretty sure that everyone within 3 buildings on either side of the thing woke up.

Now, the owner must have woken up because the alarm went off for a couple of minutes and then was shut off. I began to drift back to sleep, but was the storm satisfied with the interruption it made in my slumber? Noooooooooo, not hardly. It sent another incredibly close and intense roll of thunder that, you guessed it, set of the car alarm again. This time I took solace in the fact that I knew the owner was awake and that the alarm would be shut off in less than 30 minutes time.

Well, I woke up unhappy with the weather and vowing payback (the specifics of revenge upon the weather are still blurry... it is an admirable foe) but I decided to be positive about it. I came up with one good thing.... At least I didn't have to drive to work in it :)

EWWWW!

So yesterday I walk out to the bank of elevators and I casually press the down button and look around and notice..... A roach. A biggin. Chilling out in front of one of the elevators. Hmmm, ok well what are the odds that his elevator will be the one... DING! Oh crud. I look from the light above the elevator that tells me that it's all mine down to the roach with a horrified expression which worsens with what I see.

Apparently the ding awakened something inside said roach and it sprang to life. Not only that, it look a full blown charge at me with the result being that I had no way to get around it to the elevator. With the little bit of nastiness sprinting towards me, I look up desperately and see someone coming out of the elevator. "There's a roach" I say surprisingly calmly. She looks at me strangely and continues to exit and proceeds to walk all around but not actually on the roach. I tell her "It's on your foot!" NOW she gets it and runs off. Luckily this has distracted to roach enough for me to reach the elevator in safety.

When I got to work today and the elevator obligingly let me off on my floor, I looked around everywhere before I stepped out and continued to search my surroundings as I walked. I performed a thorough search of my desk and have declared it to be roach free.... at least it was when I searched it. Anyways, just another day of freaking myself out by thinking I feel something crawling on me... yuck!

Small birds and large celebrations

This was a sort of mega weekend for my family. My mom's birthday and Father's Day were both yesterday and my dad's birthday is not far behind... yes, my parents are only 2.5 weeks apart in age... cute, right? :) Nate and I went to hang out with them at the new casa on Friday and Saturday. Mostly we went in the pool, ate, played pool, ate and listened to the birds chirping. Wait a second, those birds sound a little bit louder than I would expect them to seeing as how we are inside. Unless...... Oh, there they go again. Ummm, does anyone else think the birds are living in the fireplace? Show of hands? Well, after 24 hours of this, we were convinced that the birds had decided to move in with my parents which is sweet but mostly annoying.

On Saturday we decide to light a fire and try to get them to leave. All of you PETA peeps out there, we weren't trying to roast them only to get them to leave..... the fire was only lit for a short period of time. Well, this got them riled up but didn't so much get them to leave. Hmmmm, well, we'll just worry about it later. So later, my mom, Nate and I are all sitting in the den and we hear a flapping of wings... CLOSE. Like, expecting to see the bird in the grate close. We all stare at the fireplace until it happens again. "Ummmm, Dad.... did you close the Floo?" Turns out the after he turned off the fire, the floo did indeed stay open. My dad climbed into the fireplace with a flashlight and proceeded to poke the fluttering bird and he freaked out and flew away. This was after he left his droppings on the fake gas logs, of course :) Fun times.

Woo Hoo

It's Friday and I couldn't be happier! It's been a seriously busy week at work and all I have to do is get through the next 9 hours or so and I am home free.... for two days at least :) Fun side note, Nate and I received our 2nd of 6 wedding invitations for weddings occurring within one single 8 week period. Whew, it's gonna be a crazy wedding summer for us. I know what Jen Cates (or Jen Lewis for that matter) is thinking right now.... Girl, you don't know what a crazy wedding season looks like! But for me it's crazy. Luckily they are all ones that I want to go to so I am super pumped about it instead of dreading it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many engaged friends of mine who just happened to all pick different weekends (which with them all being in such a tight time frame, I was worried about a double weekend) when I will be in town so that I don't have to miss seeing any of them get married. Ok, I think that's good for today :)

Pro Shuffle

I have the tendency with music to put one cd in my car and let it go on and on and on for 1-2 months before I change it out for something new. This is a fantastic way to get fantastically bored of something and never want to listen to it again.... well for a year or so at least. Not surprisingly, I have abused my ipod in the same way, making playlists that I focus exclusively on til track number 3 (that I used to love) makes me yawn, and track number 7 (that I used to love love) makes me want to toss my cookies. Well, I say no more!! The abuse stops here (well, the ipod abuse at least... not sure if the car thing is changeable, it's genetic... passed on from my mother :)

Lately I have been putting my ipod on shuffle and what a difference it makes!! Sure, I have to skip a few songs here and there (like the ones on that playlist that I used to love :P ) but for the most part I just sit back and get to experience a broad range of music including a lot of songs I either forgot I had or had just neglected to listen to for years. I am being re-emerged into the world of a christian SKA obsession I had circa 1997, for one and that has been fun :) My ipod has gently reintroduced Jars of Clay to my line up alongside old school Goo Goo Dolls. Praise and worship albums from college have been mixed with classical pieces by the great John Williams and classical guitar by Andy McKee. Jack Johnson's voice has soothed me after Linkin Park has woken me up. I am a BIG fan of shuffle. Plus, on stressful work days it makes one less thing I have to worry about... and that, my friends, is priceless.

I am T-I-R-E-D today. It feels like the week should be over already and here it is Wednesday :P

Fun Stuff

I got an email from Ann Taylor Loft yesterday, as I do about once a week, and found out..... drumroll please... that they are starting a line of maternity clothes!! Of course they're really cute and surprisingly the same price or a little cheaper than most Loft clothes. It is now official, even if I get pregnant, I will STILL only have to shop at one store :) I figure this way when the time comes to start having kids, I won't have to put it off solely based on lack of suitable maternity clothes :P

http://www.anntaylorloft.com/catalog/department.jsp?N=1200121&categoryId=619

House Update

Ok, I feel fairly sure it is going to work out this time so here is the post....

My parents are closing on a house on Wednesday!! They are moving in Thursday and are excited about finally getting this aspect of their move over with. My mom in particular is missing her pots, pans and everything else that has either been, a) in storage for the past 2.5 years, or b) on it's way from Paris. They have been living out of their suitcases and are ready to say good bye to that. I would post pics of the house, but it is no longer on the real estate website and I haven't taken any myself, but hopefully after this weekend I should have some although I doubt the house will be very put together by then :)

Empty

My office is typically empty when I get here, but usually there is one other early bird and a couple of slackers that come in around 6:20-6:30. Today I am still alone and the office has a feeling of desertion. I'm thinking the office happy hour last night may have been a little too happy :) The good news is that in a few hours we get to play a rousing round of "Count how many coworkers came to work hungover".... should be interesting as I have no idea what a hangover feels or really looks like. Now, hungover people like for you to talk to them REALLY LOUDLY, right? ;)

Hits close to home, makes me laugh

Does this remind anybody of their boss/office?

Crud Nuggets

I just typed this entry and my computer deleted it prior to spell checking and now I feel stupid typing it again as it was not exactly fine literature. Well, here we go anyway :P

I have been wiped out all week and I am now officially into my second day of proof reading the most boring Geotech report known to man (as opposed to all those wildly exciting Geotech reports with multiple plot twists and such :) Anyhoo, I have noticed that when my life gets mundane then my blog either becomes boring or increasingly more random. I'm going for random here with these two quotes from the Office~


After learning of his promotion-

Dwight~ "My first order of business is to choose my number 2. My ideal choice? Jack Bauer. But he is unavailable, fictional... and overqualified."

Dwight~ "I want you to act as the secret Assistant Regional Manager, however, I will maintain the title publicly."
Pam~ "You are going to be your own assistant?"
Dwight~ "That's right, I need somebody I can trust."

Narcoleptic Co-workers and you; A guide to survival

I believe the title to this little foray into my world about says it all, but then again not so I better elaborate. Yesterday I went down to the City of Houston to pick up our NTP documents for a project that I am working on. My pseudo manager at the moment went with me. For a little background, he is an incessant talker... seriously, never stops. So as we are driving (he is driving, technically) I notice that he is being awfully quiet not to mention that fact that he keeps zoning out. He takes the McKinney exit off of 45 to downtown going about 20 mph, which is unusual, and pulls up to the first light. I look over and his eyes are closed.

At this point I'm thinking, "Ok, he's just relaxing for a second." But then he did the wake up twitch that you do when you've fallen asleep accidentally, while simultaneously letting off the brake and giving me a split-second heart attack. Well, it worried me at least :P He proceeds to do this two more times and this light and 3-4 times at the next light where I have to wake him up and tell him that the light is green. At this point I am really glad that we are almost there so that I can just take over and drive home after we pick up the papers. He proceeds to fall asleep twice at the next light and several times WHILE driving in the parking garage. Turns out that he is on medication that causes drowsiness, but to me he looked either drunk or drugged. He was slurring and mumbling and taking 2 minutes to respond to things I would say. Anyhoo, the moral of the story is, tis better to offer to drive than to die :P

A pick me up

This is what happened from my perspective~

Phone rings (Switchfoot- Dare You to Move... don't cha know) and I see that it is my sister in law
Me- "Hello?"
Other Person- responds with incoherent babbling
Me- "Ahhh, Hi Elena Joy!"
Elena- "HI!!" followed by more incoherent babbling
Me- "How are you doing, sweetheart?"
Elena- excited incoherent babbling followed by, "No!, no no no..."
Me- "No?"
Phone disconnects

I call my sister in law back at this point and got this version~

Me- "Hey Amy, I just had a very interesting conversation with Elena"
Amy- "Yeah, we're trying to figure out how she got my phone.... my purse wasn't anywhere near where she could have grabbed it. We figured out that she had it when she kept telling the dog "no" over and over again. Apparently the dog wanted to eat the phone and Elena wasn't ok with that."

16 month olds calling your relatives, dogs eating your phones... ah, to have a family :)

Without Excedrin Migraine, I think I'd be lost.... or throwing up right now. I took two this morning upon entering my 12th and increasingly more nauseating hour of this week's migraine and right now I am sitting very still and willing the pills to do their magic so that I can get through my work day.... Do you think anyone here would notice if I took a nap?